Stage 1 Complete
We are finally back from the 1st stage of the Mountain Academy! And what a stage! We had to face winter conditions. Real ones.
The base camp has been established at Col du Flambeaux (Italy - Valle d'Aosta), at 3500m elevation. 380kg of material and equipment, needed for the 22 persons, have been carried there, through the cable car of Pointe Hellbronner. Due to strong wind (80km/h), it has not been possible to use helicopter to drop the material. So, all of us have experienced a short but intense Sherpa training! We had to face challenging weather conditions, the ones you can expect more in early Feb than late April. We could not do all the activities and the program we wanted to, but weather talks...
Most of the pictures taken by David Ravanel have been taken during the "quiet" day. We had to be very careful with the conditions as well as saftey (lots of fresh snow, wind, avalanches...). The collaboration between the mountain rescue team from Valle Aosta and the French guides have been constructive and decisive (but sometimes not that easy...). The French helicopter from the French rescue team has offered a "free" fly to Jerome Blanc Gras (French mountain guide, head of the coordination for the Mountain ACademy program), due to a twisted knee. We are still crossing our fingers and expect that the ligaments are not broken (more to know in the coming days).
The group of the young selected candidates is awesome! They are very friendly, motivated and more than happy with this 1st stage. We have the right persons! A big, huge thanks to Tim Emmet and Kurt Asner who joined us during this 1st Academy! They fully played their role of mentor, explained techniques, told stories, gave advices, provided experiences and with a very positive sense of humour! And the candidates were amazed to climb and ascend with these guys!
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